Sunday, June 27, 2010

Hand-pulled noodles are viewed as a rare and wondrous thing in San Francisco, where I usually sit. I have seen gawking crowds viewing noodle pulling demonstrations by "chefs" in full whites in the middle of Union Square, and the discovery of a new hand-pulled noodle venue anywhere in the Bay Area is passed around in hushed, almost reverential tones. In China, by contrast, hand-pulled noodles are all but the lowest common denominator in comfort foods, with self-indentified "Lanzhou" la mian establishments on nearly every street corner dispensing a hearty bowl of fresh noodles for 3-5 Chinese Yuan, or about 50-75 cents. Pulling noodles, while it requires a skill that comes from practice, is physically demanding "mule work" in a busy noodle shop, and more often than not assigned to the youngest, most strapping member of the cooking family.

Fortunately for those of us who love fresh noodles, the burgeoning Chinese population in New York is pushing its food culture in the direction of la mian as a necessity and away from la mian as a novelty. In a recent visit to New York four hand-pulled noodle shops (including one that drew multiple visits from me) ended up in my mix of small eats venues, and I'm sure I could have found more with due diligence. All four were excellent values, serving up a good-sized bowl of fresh beef noodles in a broth with a distinct personality for $4-$5.00. Two were in Flushing, and two were in the East Broadway vicinity of Manhattan's Chinatown; two were served with a typical Lanzhou-style clear broth, and two with a more strongly flavored, brown colored Taiwanese-y broth. The four are profiled below

Kuai An La Mian was formerly know (and loved) as Eastern Noodle. I didn't have the opportunity of trying it under the earlier regime, though I can't imagine it's lost much if anything, as the noodles were fresh and delicous. This was one the two with a dark broth. A pleasant place to sit, with a view of the vegetable market along the Manhattan Bridge landing.
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Lanzhou Handmade NoodlesGolden Mall, 41-28 Main St., Flushing

This is my favorite place for hand-pulled noodles to date in New York, partly for the just-like-China ambience of the Golden Mall food court, as well as the proximity (an arm's reach away) of Xi'an Famous Foods, where I can grab a lamb a lamb rou jia mo to add a little tasty protein to my dinner. Come here at 10:00 at night on a steamy evening (bringing your own beer), and you'll find it jumping. Pictured above is the more expensive eel noodles (which I found too sweet to my taste); I was too quick to dive into the excellent beef noodles to snap a picture. They use a clear Lanzhou-style broth here; I recommend the beef tendon noodles.
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Lan Zhou Hand Made Noodle & Dumpling96 E. Broadway, Manhattan

I stumbled across this place on my way from the 88 E. Broadway Mall (of Xi'an Famous Foods #3 renown) to the F Train station and had to give it a go. It was quiet in the middle of a weekday afternoon (with only one other table occupied) but has an extensive menu and good, fresh noodles. Despite the name, the broth in the beef brisket noodles I had was more of the Taiwanese style, even to the faintly medicinal taste characteristic of Taiwan's beef noodles. The noodles, however, were definitely Lanzhou style in thickness and shape.
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This was a repeat visit for me, but the first since I put a lot of "genuine" Lanzhou noodles under my belt in Shanghai. Like the noodles at the Golden Mall (though neither the shops not the malls are related) the broth is of the clear Lanzhou style, though the noodles seemed a bit thicker than is characteristic, and the inclusion of bok choy was also atypical. This is not to fault the noodles, which were tasty and fresh. I was there at dinner time, and the shop was lacking in business; indeed, the whole food court seems depressingly like a ghost town except for clusters of activity at the far end from the unfortunately located noodle shop.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

It seems that the iPad will have something for everybody, and that includes noodle lovers, at least those of the ramen persuasion. Look for RamenWalker Tokyo and RamenWalker Yokohama applications in the iTunes app store. As far as I can tell, they are just magazines you can flip through, but here is the publisher's description of Ramenwalker Tokyo:

"Ramen Walker Tokyo 2010" Magazine is Published from Kadokawa Marketing Inc.Contents of This Magazine is linked with "Ramen Walker Web" social web site. It registrated 30,000 shops or more, and mouth‐to‐mouth topics and review data from Ramen People as latest information. This issue is understand all about of the Ramen for Tokyo area. This Free version is can download until the end of July.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

On a foray to Lers Ros, the local foodies' New Best Thai Restaurant Friend last week, the notion for a noodles-only blog was already bubbling on the stove of my mind and I decided to take a flyer on something totally new to me, yen ta fo. Yen ta fo, which is เย็นตาโฟ in Thai, according to one thread on Chowhound.com (but don't hold me to that) is an eccentric rice noodle-based chowderish soup which seems to feature seafood prominently or exclusively. What's eccentric about it is the color of the broth, which is pink. It doesn't really come through in the photo above, but the broth in my yen ta fo was not red, but pink: shocking pink; Day-glo pink; Hello Kitty pink. It was a food color that Dr. Seuss could have dreamed up.

The pink of yen ta fo apparently comes from the fact that the soup broth was traditionally made with red/pink colored tofu (like to Chinese hong doufu ru, which was itself probably colored with red yeast rice). The yen ta fo at Lers Ros consisted of rice noodles (choice of vermicelli, regular width or broad flat noodles) in the sweet-sour-spicy pink broth, and a generous amount of shrimp, fish balls (said to be a necessary ingredient), cuttlefish, veggies, and what may have been thinly sliced dried tofu. The complex broth had a good chili kick, perhaps emphasized by contrast with the Barbie Doll coyness of its color, and the soup soup as a whole made a very satisfying light meal.

The yen ta fo ($7.25 for a large bowl) is something I'd definitely order again at Lers Ros, and look for at other Thai restaurants.

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About Me

Gary Soup is the nom de l'écran of Gary Stevens, a blogger, tweeter and sometimes poster to foodie web sites, usually blathering about Chinese food. He is a retired transport planner with an abiding interest in all aspects of Asian and other ethnic foods and their place in the world. He is married to a Shanghainese women who happens to be a good cook and consequently is well-grounded in Shanghainese "jia chang" cuisine. He is based in San Francisco, but spends as much time as he can in Shanghai and New York and can sometimes be seen prowling the streets of Montreal. He is the author of two articles on food in the guidebook "Urbanatomy: Shanghai" and has been a guest blogger for the Asian Art Museum on the food of Shanghai. He currently maintains two Blogger blogs, and posts to flickr and Instagram. Some earlier online efforts of Mr. Soup drift about the World Wide Web as cyberspace debris.